Wednesday, December 01, 2010

The stronger the water flow in an area, the greater the biodiversity of benthic marine communities

Here is something interesting. Scientists Dr James E Palardy, and Dr Jon D. Witman of the department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, USA have discovered that water flow has a net positive effect on the biodiversity of benthic invertebrate communities. Enhanced water flow treatments resulted in higher levels of species density (+56%) and richness (+74%).

The research was done in benthic marine communities of Palau, Maine and Alaska. The researchers wanted to test the following hypothesizes.

(1) Increased water flow velocities lead to increased local species density and species richness and

(2) Water flow generates increased species richness by promoting the increased recruitment of rare species.

The study clearly showed that the assembly and maintenance of diversity within the benthic invertebrate communities is strongly affected by flow. The communities exposed to higher water flow had greater species densities and richness.According to researchers a stronger current would increase the number of species whose larvae would land and settle on a particular area.

The researchers got identical results in two marine regions of the world separated by 4,000 miles with completely different regional diversities. The research clearly demonstrates that water flow is a really strong predictor of how many species are present in a particular area of the ocean.